


Something You're Not Caught At

by greenstuff



Category: In Plain Sight
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 05:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenstuff/pseuds/greenstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. What if Mary and Marshall met under different circumstances. What if, instead of his partner, she was his witness?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Washington D.C_

"How's the trial going?"

Marshall sighed heavily. His witness has been scheduled to give testimony the day before yesterday, but the defense was using every stall tactic in the book and a few Marshall was pretty certain they'd made up just to torment him. He'd barely slept in 72 hours and every noise outside the second floor condo where they were hiding their witness set his fight or flight into overdrive. "Tomorrow morning. We're first on the schedule and the judge promised to keep it to one day. Either way, we're not coming back here." Marshall scanned the street outside for the thousandth time. It was empty except a homeless man sleeping in the doorway across and down three units. "We've been here too long already. I don't like it."

"Hang in there." Stan said in his best encouraging-the-troops voice. "I'll make sure there's another safe house lined up in case you need one more night."

"Thanks." Marshall forced himself to step away from the window. One sure way to draw extra attention: having a guy staring out at the street every five minutes all through the night. "How is everything in Albuquerque?"

"Your witnesses are fine. We've got two incoming tomorrow. I thought I'd give them to Charlie. About time he took on a new case solo."

Marshall nodded even though Stan couldn't see. Charlie Connor was a good kid, sharp, hard-working, but green as a fig beetle. So far in the six months Charlie had been in Albuquerque he'd shadowed Marshall on visits, taken over some older, stable witnesses to free up Marshall's time for incoming cases, but otherwise his presence hadn't lightened the overworked ABQ office at all. "I think he's ready."

"Hope so. This one'll be a little tricky. You're getting a new one as well, but she won't be in until day after tomorrow. If you're still in DC I'll do the intake and you can meet her when you get back."

The word tricky stuck in Marshall's ear. It wasn't one Stan used often. Also unusual was the arrival of three witnesses so close on one another's heels. The two Charlie was taking he assumed were a couple, which meant the third was… "Not again Stan." He groaned.

"Sorry." Stan said, sounding almost like he meant it. They'd had this fight before, and Marshall always lost. "Mistress is a witness too, and she refused to enter the program unless they were kept together."

"I hate this."

"I know."

Marshall looked at his watch. Twenty past twelve. He needed to try and sleep. There were two local marshals in the next room who were tasked with the night shift and he was no good to anyone like this, strung out on stress and utterly exhausted. "You'll let me know about the safe house?"

"First thing tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Stan."

"'Night."

Marshall plugged in his phone and set it on the short wicker stand next to the single bed he'd barely slept in for the last four days. With a brief prayer that they would get Jonathan's testimony over with first thing in the morning so he could get back home, he lay down and tried to sleep.

_Two Days Later  
Albuquerque, NM_

Marshall was used to dealing with scum; he'd been a WITSEC inspector for five years and four generations of Mann men before him had worn the silver star. But he didn't know if he would ever get used to this. Not for the first time, and sadly probably not for the last, WITSEC was facilitating adultery and Marshal Marshall Mann was front and center

_I thought she'd be blonde_. It was the first thought that sprang across Marshall's mind when he caught sight of his new witness through the Venetian blinds of the conference room. It wasn't that Marshall had anything against blondes... well, not all blondes... Though there was something about the breed of women who paid hundreds of dollars to leech the natural pigment from their hair and then paid someone else hundreds of dollars to spray pigment all over their skin that put him in mind of high school mean girls and over-coiffed poodles and just plain set his teeth on edge. And although Mama Mann had taught him well and Marshall was deeply respectful of all women, he couldn't help but expect Britney-the-Mistress to be one of those peroxide, acrylic, and spray tan creations. The glimpse of ginger ponytail that formed his first impression of his new witness seemed to be just the opposite.

And then he entered the conference room and was treated to the full visual: from artfully messy hair arranged around a sparkling headband in that too-casual way that takes at least an hour longer to achieve than a more coiffed look, to the two size too small top out of which two too perky not to be plastic breasts were desperately trying to escape. There was definitely something of the high school mean girl in this 110lb package. She didn't raise her head when Marshall entered, but blue eyes, brightened by colored contacts, peered at him through a cloud of false lashes and blue eyeliner and her acrylic tipped fingers stopped drumming their relentless tattoo upon the table for the split second it took her to appraise him and then resumed.

Marshall dropped the MOU on the table and took a fiendish delight in both the loud crack of it landing and the flinch of his witness. He could have sworn he used to be a nicer man, but five years of dealing with as many criminals as victims had soured much of his enjoyment of the human race. He supposed this was why most marshals worked in pairs. But the Albuquerque office was small and other than a few marshals who had cycled through, most staying less time than it took the average witness to become economically self-sufficient, Marshall had been on his own. Charlie was the longest lasting so far, and he had been there barely six months. Thank God for Stan. The older marshal's sometimes goofy sometimes dark sense of humor was up to lightening almost every situation they had yet to come across and, more importantly, Stan had supported Marshall to the bone whenever he ran up against bureaucratic barriers – with the exception of the three cases over five years that Marshall had all but begged Stan to turn away. They were more than boss and employee; they were friends. Both were single; Stan didn't have a family; Marshall's was in another state and he didn't get to see them as much as he wished he could; and neither of them seemed able to make a relationship work longer than they could get a second junior marshal to stay with the ABQ WITSEC office.

There had been a time when Marshall lamented the limited nature of his life in Albuquerque, but he'd grown used to it; he was comfortable with the loneliness and the dull sense that his life was somehow incomplete. He wasn't depressed or even unhappy, but sometimes, when he let his guard down he had a creeping sensation that something was missing, or some _one_ ; like the life he was living wasn't the one he was meant to. Which of course was ridiculous. Alternate lives were wonderful in science fiction movies, but Marshall was a man who knew his fiction from cold hard reality. As he looked across the table at Britney he wished, just for a moment, that he was the kind of man who believed in alternate lives, surely alternate-Marshall was having a better day than this one.

"Hello Britney, I'm Marshall. This Memorandum of Understanding," he tapped the cover of the MOU, "constitutes the entire agreement between you and the US Marshal Service. It lays out our obligations to you and your requirements to maintain status as a protected witness. Do you have any questions before we get started?"

The tapping stopped again as her fingers moved to twirl the heart-shaped pendant hanging around her neck. She looked Marshall straight in the eye for the first time and asked, in a voice that was half an octave lower than Marshall would have presumed, "Where's Mark? That guy in the cheap blue suit… Stew or something?... he said if I testify I can stay with Mark."

Marshall looked to Stan for help. He assumed Mark was one of Charlie's new witnesses, but he'd been back in Albuquerque less than six hours and he wasn't fully up to speed on the events of the day before.

Stan cleared his throat. "Mark is safe."

Marshall couldn't tell if Stan was being deliberately unhelpful or if he was just honouring their duty to protect their witnesses' location, but by the way Britney straightened her spine, uncrossing her legs and folding her arms across her chest he could see she thought it was the first option.

"Well I'm not signing no contact until I see him." The head toss that accompanied her declaration would have been more effective if every hair on her head hadn't been painstakingly lacquered into place.

Years of experience hiding his feelings was all that allowed Marshall to conceal his frustration. He had dealt with mistresses entering the program before; three times in five years some cheating scumbag had held enough juicy information that the DOJ was willing to supply just about every demand, but this was the first time the mistress of a witness had herself been a witness. The DOJ was adamant it needed both of them, which meant that at least to the extent that it was possible without compromising their witnesses' security, they were at the mercy of a tiny redheaded woman from the Jersey shore.

"We'll see what we can do." Marshall said in a measured voice, pushing back from the table and walking with slow, deliberate steps from the room.

Stan followed close behind, neither man speaking until they were safely shut inside Stan's office with the blinds drawn.

"I don't like this," Marshall said, his hands coming to rest on his hips. "The DOJ wanted us to put them in the same city, fine. But I am not orchestrating this man's affair. If she walks after she's seen him we'll have to move him  _and_ his wife, and who knows if he'll stay in the program without his mistress."

Stan waited until Marshall finished before picking up the phone. "Charlie? How soon can you be back at the office?"

Marshall couldn't make out more than a murmur on the other line.

"Okay." Stan listened for a few moments. "Good. Listen, we need the wife out of there for a few hours—"

"Stan!" Marshall protested, but Stan shook his head no and resumed his conversation, this time with his back to Marshall.

"Yeah, she wants to see him before she signs the MOU… I'd send Marshall but… Exactly." Stan flipped through a couple pieces of paper on his desk. "Has she gone for her interview yet? Okay… at four?"

Marshall checked his watch, it was half past two.

"Okay. That is perfect. See you in twenty… Okay… Okay, goodbye." Stan hung up the phone and turned to face Marshall. He held up a hand for silence. "Mark's wife will be gone from quarter to four to about five thirty for a job interview I set up for her yesterday down at Burt's—"

"Burt's  _Tiki Lounge_?" Marshall's eyebrows rose to his hairline. The locally owned, extremely popular dive bar was a security  _nightmare_. Hundreds of people, many of them tourists who had seen the articles in  _Esquire_  or  _Stuff_  calling it one of the "best dive bars in the country," passed through Burt's every week, most of them drunken young adults with camera phones and poorly guarded social networking profiles.

"I know." Stan held up two hands to forestall the argument he could see forming on Marshall's brow. "It's a security breach waiting to happen, but you didn't meet this witness. I don't think we're going to have to worry about the bar bunnies begging her to pose for a photo."

Instinctively Marshall's hackles raised at what he perceived to be an aspersion against this woman he'd never met. He couldn't help it; objectification of women was one of his no-go-zones.

"I'm not saying she isn't a good looking woman." Stan said, rolling his eyes at Marshall's tense jaw. "So don't you even think about educating me on gender equality or women's suffrage. Just trust me, this was a good fit and the security risk is probably less at Burt's than it would be anywhere else in the city."

Marshall doubted that, but he held his tongue. Stan hadn't been given control of the Albuquerque office because no one else wanted it; he had earned the post through hard work and damn good instincts. Marshall tilted his head in wordless acceptance of Stan's greater wisdom and waited for the rest of the explanation.

"As I was saying, Mary will be gone at her interview for about an hour and a half, should be plenty of time for you and Charlie to bring Mark here, get Britney's MOU underway, and we can have Mark home before the missus notices he's missing."

Marshall looked skeptical. It was a simple plan, one might even call it easy, which in his experience meant it was almost guaranteed to go wrong. "And when Mary arrives home and Mark still isn't home yet?"

"Then Mark can tell her we needed him to finish up some last minute paper work having to do with their financial assets." Stan's smile was more smug than any cat who'd ever lunched on canary.

_3:55 PM_

Even by WITSEC standards, the apartment complex the Sheppards now called home was bleak. The five floor building on the edge of town featured one elevator which was out as often as it worked and a stucco exterior that was in serious need of a good power wash, if not a complete overhaul. The interior had been renovated sometime in the late nineties and was at least clean, if blander than most hospitals. The walls were a washed out grey, half a shade lighter than the once-grey-now-beige carpets that lined the hallways. The rooms were numbered with simple black numbers hung diagonally across the door – the closest thing to 'décor' to be found on the premises. There were three buildings, built in a horseshoe around a 'garden' that was more weeds than grass and a parking lot with exactly one stall per unit, numbered and marked out with threatening signs about the towing of unauthorized vehicles, and only two for guests in the entire lot.

Marshall let Charlie lead the way up three flights of stairs and halfway down a bleak, empty hall to room 432. The younger man knocked twice and then stepped back and waited patiently for Mark to answer. He looked a little nervous and Marshall hid a small smile behind a cough. He remembered well his first real witness. He could recognize the combination of trepidation and pride in the young marshal's countenance. Charlie would make a solid US Marshal one day. Already some of the green was beginning to wear off.

The door opened only as far as the chain would allow and Marshall mentally congratulated Charlie for driving home the importance of security, while making a mental note to have a peephole installed in the door the next day. A chain on the door wasn't much good against a gun or anyone determined to get inside. After a brief moment, the door swung open fully and Marshall got his first glimpse of Mark Sheppard. Marshall wondered what Mark's real last name had been, he hadn't really looked at the file, but the blonde man who opened the door didn't look like a Sheppard, more like a Schmidt – something good and Germanic. Mark was a couple inches shorter than Marshall, but by no means short. His broad shoulders filled out the pinstriped dress shirt he wore as if it had been tailored to fit him, which made the mussed hair and two day stubble look like a fashion choice. If Marshall hadn't been predisposed to dislike Mark by the presence of Britney, he probably wouldn't have thought anything of the other man's appearance, but as it stood he couldn't help feeling an intense distain towards this perfectly rumpled peacock of a man; he was glad Stan had given the couple to Charlie.

He wondered what the wannabe-surfer-dude-turned-savvy-businessman Burt would think of the strategically dishevelled blonde his brain had created under the name Mary Sheppard. If Mark had a type, and it seemed like he did, Marshall thought he could probably pick Mary Sheppard out of a crowd without really trying. These three were going to stick out like a sore thumb in the laid back function over fashion atmosphere of Albuquerque. If this was going to work, someone was going to have the convince Mark and his harem that their safety depended on their ability to blend in, which meant losing the big city, east coast hipster vibe. Sometimes, Marshall thought, it would be nice to have a female marshal who could deal with that kind of conversation. The thought of him giving Britney advice on fashion was almost too horrifying to be funny. Maybe, if he asked really nicely and prefaced it with a donut, he could get their on call psychiatrist Shelly to do it.

"Am I in trouble already?" Mark asked, laughing too loudly at his paltry attempt at a joke, as if he were performing to a crowd of more than the two marshals on his doorstep.

"Is Mary home?" Charlie asked.

Mark shook his head. "She went to that interview you guys set up. I can call her though, she's got the cellphone with her." Mark turned and walked into the apartment. "Come on in. I have the number here somewhere."

Charlie shot Marshall a helpless look, but Marshall schooled his features and gave him nothing in return. These were Charlie's witnesses, he was just here so they would know who he was if there was ever trouble bad enough to require more than Charlie's presence, and because, as Britney's marshal, Marshall might be required to interact with Mark more than he would normally with another marshal's witness; a prospect he was not looking forward to.

"We actually just need you, Mark." Charlie said, stepping into the apartment after his witness. "It's about… the special request you made to the DOJ."

Mark looked totally lost. "What special request?"

"The  _additional_  matter?"

"Huh?"

Marshall ground his back molars together to keep from laughing. Certainly it would be important to the security of both Mark and Britney to be discreet about the affair, as much as that pained his sense of justice, but Mary was demonstrably absent and, for the sake of efficiency, he stepped in. "Your girlfriend."

Charlie looked askance at Marshall, causing him to wonder if Stan had given Charlie the long version of his speech on the importance of utmost discretion in witness management and protection. He would have to pull the marshal aside at some point and explain that most witnesses were not covert ops wannabes and code words really only worked if they were agreed upon in advance. Most of the time attempts at subtlety ended up standing out tenfold compared to straight forward words spoken in an undertone.

"Britney?" Mark still looked confused.

Marshall had a sudden, horrible feeling that the DOJ hadn't told the Marshal Service the whole truth about these witnesses. "You did know she was entering the program?" He meant it to be a statement, but his voice twisted the last word into a question.

Charlie's eyes widened as he caught on to Marshall's suspicion. He silently thanked Stan for sending Marshall with him, this was a situation his training had not prepared him for.

"Well… yeah." Mark ran a hand back and forth over his hair. "She saw Claire get hit just like me so I figured…" He shot Charlie a helpless look.

"Britney arrived in Albuquerque this afternoon." Charlie supplied.

"But…" Mark scrunched up his eyes for a moment, as if not being able to see the room around him would help him figure this out. "What's she doing  _here_?"

Marshall looked at his watch, it was already 4:15. Stan had said they had until 5:30, but Marshall wasn't taking any chances. "Look, we'll explain everything, but not here." He shot Charlie a significant look.

Charlie nodded. "Call Mary, tell her we needed to go over a few issues with transferring your assets and tell her you might be home late." He ordered, handing his phone to his witness.

Mark stared at the phone as if he'd forgotten what a cellphone was for several seconds before plucking it from the marshal's hand. "I don't know our number yet." Mark said, turning and fumbling through a pile of paper on the table.

"It's already dialed, just hit 'call.'" Charlie said in a calm, placating voice.

"Right, sorry." Mark jabbed at the screen and then held the phone to his ear.

Marshall rocked back on his heels, content to watch as Charlie ably handled his witness. Mark's discomfort with the news of Britney's presence in Albuquerque made Marshall second guess at least part of his assumptions about the man. Maybe Mark Sheppard wasn't a complete scumbag after all. Phil Stuart from the DOJ on the other hand… Marshall had a few choice words for the man, none of which were appropriate in polite company.

"Hey Mare, it's Mark. Look, the marshals need me to fill out some more paperwork to get our accounts transferred over."

Charlie nodded encouragingly at his witness' lie.

"I'm headed downtown with Charlie now. Not sure when I'll be home. Hope the interview went well. Love you." Mark ended the call and handed the phone back to Charlie. "Here. Now will someone please tell me what the  _fuck_  is going on?"

It took most of the ride to the Sunshine building for Charlie to explain to Mark that Britney had insisted that she and Mark be placed in the same city or she wouldn't testify. He tactfully left out the fact that the DOJ had led the Marshal Service to believe that Mark had been equally insistent, which Marshall personally thought was a mistake, but he kept silent; if Charlie was alright being the lightning rod for his witness' wrath, who was Marshall to judge?

When they stepped into the elevator, Marshall took charge. Now this was about his witness and it didn't matter that this was a good learning opportunity for Charlie, Marshall wasn't about to expose his witness to any potential hazards he could foresee and avoid. "Mark, before we take you in there, there are two things you need to know. One, if Britney does not sign the MOU, you and Mary will need to be relocated. Two, if she does sign, either she stays in Albuquerque or you all get relocated to separate cities. Do you understand?"

"That's blackmail." Mark said, sounding more impressed than upset.

Marshall looked at him blankly for almost a minute before responding. "No, not blackmail. Just an uncomfortable reality."

Mark looked ready to say something combative and then thought better of it. "Mary can't know."

Marshall met Mark's gaze straight on. "We're not here to judge your relationship."  _Even if you are a reprehensible human being_. "As long as you do not violate the terns of your MOU, what you do in your personal life is your business. Our job is to keep you safe. We can only do that if you're honest with us."

Mark's eyes searched Marshall's face. "Okay."

"Okay," Marshall repeated, sliding his swipe key through the lock. He held the door for Mark and Charlie and then followed them inside.

"Ohmygod Mark!" Britney practically launched herself at the man as soon as he appeared in the conference room doorway.

He returned her hug, albeit awkwardly. Looking at Charlie over the top of her red head he asked, "Can we have a minute alone?"

Seeing a quick nod from both Stan and Marshall, Charlie nodded emphatically. "Of course, we'll be right outside when you're ready."

Mark didn't even wait for the door to click shut behind the marshals before exploding with, "What the hell are you doing here Brit?"

Marshall fought the urge to slam his head against the nearest solid object. Clearly his warning in the elevator had been too subtle. If Britney walked, or if they had to relocate three witnesses within days of their entering the program the shit storm that would rain down from the DOJ would be a nightmare, and all because one man from New Jersey couldn't keep his dick in his pants. Marshall didn't lose his cool often, but this case was pushing him to the edge of his self-control. The fact he had been against their taking these particular witnesses in the first place wasn't helping. Marshall Mann liked being right (it would probably even be fair to say he liked being right more than almost anyone else on the planet), but there was no satisfaction in being right when it meant you were up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

"What now?" Charlie asked Stan in a low voice that almost couldn't be heard over the barely muted fight going on in the conference room. From the sound of it, neither Britney nor Mark was happy that her coming had been a surprise. The marshals pretended not to hear, but it was hard to truly tune out the raised voices flowing freely from the glass walled room.

Stan shrugged. "Either she signs the MOU and Marshall gets her settled across town from the Sheppards, or she doesn't and you go pick up Mary and we start arranging to relocate all of them." He poured himself a cup of coffee and held up the pot in silent offer to the other two.

Marshall shook his head. He was too keyed up for coffee. What he wanted to know was what the fuck the DOJ had been thinking. "Did Stuart say anything about this to you when he set up the transfer?"

Stan shook his head, from the glint in his eye he was almost as pissed off as Marshall. "No. Don't worry, there will be an inquiry."

Marshal nodded, it wouldn't go anywhere, but at least if Stan filed a formal complaint no one would try and hang Charlie out to dry when this whole mess went up in flames. They might yet have a second junior marshal last longer than a year in Albuquerque.

After almost ten minutes the yelling inside the conference room decreased to quiet murmurs and then to complete silence. Marshall rose from his desk, picked up the MOU, and knocked on the door.

"We're ready," Mark called.

The marshals took their places, Marshall seated across form the couple, who now sat hand in hand with chairs pulled so closely together Marshall thought Britney may as well be sitting in Mark's lap. "Okay Britney," Marshall began without preamble. "This is how this works: if you decide to stay in Albuquerque, you need to sign the MOU and then I will help you set up a new life here with a new identity. If you choose not to enter WITSEC, or if you choose not to remain here, we will find you a new location. We will also relocate Mark as his security would be compromised if you were ever found."

Britney's kohl lined eyes were wide and she visibly tightened her hold on Mark. "I want to stay here with Mark."

"Baby, I told you—"

" _Please_ , Mark, I'm not an idiot. I know you're still with  _her._ " Britney muttered resentfully. "But we'll still…?" she gave him a puppy-dog eyed look.

"Of course we will." Mark smiled warmly at her and leaned in for a kiss.

"Ahem," Marshall cleared his throat. "Britney, Mark needs to go back to his apartment. Charlie will make sure he has your phone number once we get you settled. Is that alright with both of you?"

After a lingering kiss that made Marshall decidedly uncomfortable, Mark stood and followed Charlie from the room. Marshall waited until the outer office door shut before flipping to page one of the MOU. If he'd been a betting man he would have wagered good money that this would not be the last time Britney had to go through the WITSEC intake process. Eventually one of two things was bound to happen: 1) Mark's wife would find out 2) Britney would get sick of waiting and, unless she was infinitely more forgiving and gracious than she appeared, all three would be heading for new homes far from Albuquerque.

_A Few Weeks Later_

Britney settled into Albuquerque better than Marshall had anticipated. She found a job selling clothes at an upscale boutique and soon adopted the local style. Marshall surmised that the carefully constructed hipster look she'd presented on day one was a statement of conformity not fashion. He saw her very little and Mark only once, when he'd done a security check on the apartment Britney wanted to rent a month after she entered the program. He did not meet Mark's wife Mary.

But he thought about her.

Not often. But, every now and then when he drove past Burt's Tiki Lounge or when he caught sight of a blonde whose dress or demeanor didn't quite fit the Albuquerque mould, he wondered. She was something of a puzzle, this woman who had followed her philandering husband into WITSEC and whose work at a popular dive bar didn't concern Stan McQueen one bit. Marshall liked puzzles. Or rather, he liked to solve puzzles.

Unsolved puzzles were like wrapped presents under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning, just begging to be torn open to reveal what was inside.

Six weeks after the almost calamitous intake meeting, Marshall's curiosity won out. It was a Tuesday night. Far from the busiest night of the week, but still Burt's was lively and it took several minutes for Marshall to wind his way to the bar. He told himself he just wanted a cold beer after a long day and Burt's was on the way from his final witness visit of the day to his house, but he knew he was there to see Mary.

He had to know. Was she the vacuous blond bimbo his mind had drawn up the moment he met Mark? Why did Stan send her  _here_  of all places? He'd been there less than five minutes and already he'd seen at least four phones out, snapping photos of drunken girls in full duck-face pose or of the rapidly expanding collection of empties piling up in the middle of the table, photographic evidence of a fun night on the town. If she were his witness he would have put his foot down. There were some jobs that were just a bad idea. This was one of them.

He dodged a group of thirty-something men in suits and found an empty seat at the bar. He looked to his left and caught his first sight of Mary, just coming back to the bar, an empty tray in one hand. A man standing, leaning against the bar reached out as if to grab her ass. Marshall was on his feet and three steps towards them before he even realized he had moved. Protection had become an instinct by now. But she clearly didn't need it. In no time flat she'd grabbed the man's wrist and twisted it – not far enough to break it, but far enough to show she knew how and she was willing to. Marshall stood there, barely five feet away, frozen. She didn't need him to intervene, and yet the chivalrous impulse ran strong and he couldn't bring himself to stand down while the pervert was still within grabbing distance.

Mary had noticed his movement. Their eyes locked and she shot him a sardonic smile as she released the other man's wrist. His breath caught in his chest.

She was not what he had expected. Well… she was blonde. But that was the only mental box she checked. She was older for one thing. Not older than Mark, but she had at least five years on Britney, probably closer to ten. She was stunning. There was no denying that. She just didn't seem like Mark's type.

Or rather… she made Britney look like a cheap, brightly painted, badly made knock off and Marshall couldn't understand for a second why any man who had this woman would go for a Britney on the side. She was spectacular.

His eyes followed her as she rounded the bar and came up to him. "What can I get you?" she asked, all business but for the amused twinkle in her eye.

"Uh..." Marshall stammered. He'd suddenly forgotten every drink he knew. "Scotch. Neat." He managed after a moment.

"On the house." She said, pouring an ounce into a glass and setting it in front of him. "Although, for the record, I don't need backup."

"Noted." Marshall said, raising the glass in a salute before taking a generous swallow. She'd given him the good stuff. The peaty taste bloomed on his tongue and he smiled in appreciation, but Mary had already moved on to the next customer and didn't see.

He took his time with the drink, tracking Mary's every move without seeming to look at her at all. He knew how to be subtle when he wanted to be. Within five minutes he thought he knew why Stan had called in this particular favour. She wasn't sweet, or even polite, to most of the patrons. Yet he watched her cut one man off and part another from his keys without so much as breaking a sweat.

He was even more impressed a moment later. A young woman held up her camera phone to take a self-photo in front of the bar, Mary in the background. "A self-portrait at a bar. Do you have  _any_  friends?" Mary snapped, snatching the phone from the girl's fingers. "How do you work this thing?" Within two minutes the girl had her photo and her beer and was on her way.

Satisfied that this was one witness who could take care of herself, Marshall let his eyes wander over the rest of the bar. He hadn't been in Burt's in years, but a quick survey told him not much had changed. A local three man band was setting up on a low stage at one end of the bar. The space between was packed with people in their twenties and thirties crowded around small round tables, drinking beer from the bottle, or doing shots. No fruity, blended, garnished drinks here.

"Drinking alone?" Mary's voice brought his attention back to the bar.

He smiled and lied easily, "long day at the office."

She held up the scotch bottle and he nodded, pushing the glad towards her. "What office would that be?"

"The courthouse." Marshall said, supplying his usual cover story. At some point Mary would meet him in his capacity as a WITSEC inspector, but he wasn't about to announce to an entire bar something he didn't even tell his closest friends.

"Lawyer?" Her voice was noticeably cooler.

Marshall shook his head. "Nothing that interesting I'm afraid. US Marshal."

"That's not interesting?"

He shrugged. "How about you? What's that accent?"

Her brow furrowed and he could almost see the wheels churning, as if she were mentally reciting their entire conversation back, trying to find something she hadn't heard before. "I don't have an accent."

"East coast." Marshall said. "New York? State not the city right?"

When she nodded he felt a surge of pride in her. It wasn't right, and they both knew it, but she knew well enough not to give away her background. More than that, she kept the lie close enough to the truth that no one who didn't already know where she was from would even have been the wiser. Yes, she was absolutely spectacular. And Mark Sheppard was an idiot.

The words came out of his mouth before he could think better of it. "Would you like to have coffee with me? Tonight, after your shift?"

Her hands stopped straightening the glassware in front of her and her eyes locked with his. "That would be a bad idea."

"Why would that be a bad idea?" He pressed, despite the voice of reason screaming in his head that this  _was_  a bad idea, a  _very_  bad idea, perhaps the worst idea he had ever had. But there was another voice, quiet but insistent, that told him if he walked away from her tonight without even trying he would regret it.

She hadn't looked away.

"Have coffee with me."

There was something like regret in her expression. "I'm married."

"Happily?"  _Marshall Ezekiel Mann!_ _ **What**_ _is_ _ **wrong**_ _with you?_ The screaming voice of protest in his mind was starting to sound a lot like his mother. He ignored it.

She still hadn't looked away. "I-I can't. I'm sorry." She looked down, severing their eye contact. "Tony'll get your bill when you're ready." She muttered before turning and walking to the other end of the bar.

Marshall watched her go, a ghost of a smile on his lips.  _Incredible_.

That night Marshall couldn't fall asleep, his mind was too busy; it was full of Mary Sheppard. He tried all the usual tricks such. Finally he resorted to making a list of the reasons why he shouldn't be thinking about her, but for every point his brain immediately conjured a counter until he was hopelessly confused. His heart wanted her, and his mind was getting really good at coming up with justifications.  _She's married. So? He's a cheater. She said no. She did the right thing. Just like you usually do. And where has that gotten you?_  And on the endless debate went. Sometimes it circled around Mark and Britney.  _Maybe Mary knows. No, she can't. Maybe she suspects? So? So… if you were to—No!_ He couldn't tell her, no matter how tempting. Even if she found out on her own, it would be no good for him, for any future  _them_. If she left Mark she would be relocated. It was too big a security risk otherwise.

He never should have gone to see her. Once again curiosity had lured this cat into a very dangerous trap and he couldn't see a way out. At least not one that didn't make him miserable. The obvious way out was to never see Mary again, but for all his self-control, and he had a lot, he didn't think he could manage that. Not now that he had met her. He wanted to know more about her. He wanted to know  _her_ , in more than the biblical sense of the word, though he wanted that too. But she was a witness; she was a married woman; she was in hiding, trying to start a new life based on necessary lies. She could never give him what he wanted; he didn't care. He felt alive in a way he had never felt before. He wasn't giving that up without a fight.

He finally fell asleep wondering where on earth the chivalrous, principled son of Seth and Janice Mann had gone. Because Marshall was absolutely certain of one thing: he wasn't done with Mary Sheppard, not by a long shot.

o o o

The first time Marshall ran into Mary at Pro's Ranch Market was a coincidence. His usual store was out of the really good hot sauce and, after striking out at Walmart (which did not surprise him) and at Valley La Montanita Co-op (which did), he found himself on one knee in the middle if an aisle at Pro's fumbling for the last bottle of 'hot' which was half hidden at the very back of the shelf behind a dozen bottles of 'mild.' It was not the most dignified moment if his life. It was absolutely not the moment he would have chosen to have Mary round the corner, distracted by a message she was typing with one hand in her Blackberry, and nearly run him over with her cart. Then again, he was happy enough to see her he didn't mind the bruise he was sure was already blooming on his hip from the sharp corner of the grocery cart.

"Hello again." He said looking up at her with a broad smile.

Mary tilted her head to one side. "Have we met?"

Feeling foolish and a little bit hurt that she didn't recognize him when he hadn't been able to stop thinking about her since they'd met a week earlier, Marshall rose to his feet. He was about to explain when Mark rounded the corner, a cup of Starbucks coffee in one hand and a bag of frozen peas in the other.

If it hadn't been such a stark reminder of how very,  _very_  wrong his repeated thoughts about Mary were, Marshall might have seen the humour in the almost identical please-don't-say-anything-in-front-of-my-spouse expressions both Sheppards wore. As it was he mumbled polite, "sorry, my fault," and, hot sauce in hand, made a straight line for the cash register.

Three days later when he ran out of milk, Marshall went straight to Pro's Ranch Market. He told himself it was their reasonable prices and local produce, but he knew that was a lie. He was hoping, with a little luck on his side, he might run into her again. Maybe next time she would be doing her shopping solo.

_Two Weeks Later_

Marshall had never thought of himself as the stalking kind. He was good at following people, but that was part of his job. What was not part of his job was a new twice daily Broadway Boulevard Starbucks habit or the fact he now bought all his groceries at Pro's Ranch Market. He'd stayed away from Burt's but it would seem that was the limit of his control. Other than the one awkward encounter two weeks earlier, he had only managed to catch a few glimpses of the intriguing blonde. He'd seen her climbing onto a bus outside Starbucks just as he was getting out of his SUV and twice he thought he'd seen her loading groceries into the back of a blue Ford Focus in the Pro's Ranch Market parking lot.

He knew it was wrong. He told himself time and time again that she was married and a witness and, by all codes of honor, ethics, and common sense, off limits, but then the next morning he would find himself pulling into the Starbucks parking lot again, almost against his will.

_I just want to talk to her_. He told the nagging voice in his head.  _She could be a danger to my witness, I need to get to know her._ The steady stream of lies and justification did little to ease his guilt, but he could no more stop them than he could put her out of his head. So, as he climbed out of his SUV and cast his eyes around for a blue Ford Focus, he continued to inner dialogue explaining how keeping an eye on the wife of his witness' boyfriend was actually for the good of all of them.

After weeks with only a few stolen glimpses, Marshall almost didn't believe his eyes. There she was, standing at the back of the line, one hip tilted out, both hands shoved in her back pockets as she waited for a middle aged couple in front of her to decipher the apparently foreign-to-them Starbuck sizing system.

Taking a deep, steadying breath Marshall stopped a polite distance behind her and said, "Hello."

She turned slowly, as if not sure if he was talking to her. When she saw him she gave him a tight little smile. "Hi. You're everywhere aren't you?"

Marshall's eyebrows raised. "Am I?"

She shrugged, "Burt's, Pro's Market, here. For a good sized city it feels a little small townish." She said 'small town' like it was a dirty word.

Marshall laughed. "I guess you're right. Albuquerque is no Manhattan."

"Obviously," Mary muttered snarkily.

"We actually like to get to know our neighbours here." Marshall continued as if she hadn't said anything. "Often over coffee and pie. We have good pie here."

Mary was saved from responding as the couple in front of her finally moved on and the Barista asked "What can I get you?"

Mary placed her order, but before she could pay Marshall stepped up beside her. "This one's on me." He said to her in an undertone. "And I'd love a tall blonde." He said to the barista, handing her his Starbucks card.

Mary didn't say anything while they waited for the young woman to pour their coffees. Marshall too was silent, but his mind was working overtime. He knew, though he couldn't have said quite how, that the moment she had her coffee in hand Mary would make and excuse to flee. He thought he made her nervous, and the irony of making the woman who had so discombobulated him nervous would have made him laugh, had he not been desperate to get to know her better. He wanted to know everything about her; he wanted her to know everything about him. It was ridiculous of course. Even if Mark hadn't been in the picture, neither of them could ever really tell the whole truth. But reality didn't diminish desire.

They received their coffees and, right on cue, Mary turned to him with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I have to go." She raised her coffee cup slightly. "Um... thanks."

He smiled. "If you're free tonight, you can let me buy you a piece of pie to make up for it."

"I thought we'd been over this." She said, her face hardening. "I'm married."

"Yeah, you mentioned that. But you never did answer my other question."

"What question?"

"Are you happy?"

"Does it matter?" She asked, sounding exasperated.

Marshall had to work hard to keep the emotion out of his voice. "Of course it matters." Though there was a secret part of him which thrilled at the idea that she and Mark might not be happy together, that she didn't love Mark, that she might be able to one day love Marshall, most of him cared enough about people in general, and this woman in particular, to want her to be happy – no matter how serious a blight her happiness might be to his own.

"Why?" Mary tilted her head to one side, looking genuinely confused why this stranger cared about her state of happiness.

He answered with the simple truth. "I think you deserve to be happy."

"And you can make me happy?" She asked, skepticism in every line of her face. Clearly she thought this was just a pick up line.

It wasn't a pick up line, or, rather, it was a pick up line and so much more. Marshall looked her straight in the eye and answered without a trace of teasing or irony. "Yes." And he believed it. Deep in his gut, where all the instincts which made him a fantastic marshal lived, he felt it. It was as if he had been  _waiting_  for her. Even when it was awkward, which all of their encounters really had been so far, it felt  _right_ , like a missing piece had snapped into place. It was as if he had been in Plato's cave, watching the shadows dance across the wall and calling it life. Now he was out in the open air, and even if the sun burnt his unaccustomed eyes, he couldn't go back inside; he didn't want to.

"Right." She said in a voice that indicated she thought he was crazy. "It's been… interesting seeing you..?"

"Marshall." He supplied.

"Marshall the marshal?" Her eyebrows rose and her lips twitched with repressed laughter.

"Afraid so."

"Well, goodbye marshal Marshall." She smiled a polite sort of smile that didn't reach her eyes.

He didn't want her to go. "Do you always do the right thing?"

She snorted with laughter. "Does anyone?"

"No," he admitted. "But you try, don't you."

"I guess."

"Me too." He said, adding in a thoughtful tone, "It's exhausting isn't it?"

She looked confused again, but she wasn't walking away and Marshall counted that a victory.

"Maybe we should stop trying," he continued. "Just once, do the wrong thing."

"And then what?" Mary's hand was on the door, ready to push it open at any moment, but right now she was listening.

Marshall wished he was more eloquent, that he'd thought this one through. With all the useless knowledge in his head he should have had a perfect fact to throw her way right now, but his usually trusty mind was a complete blank. He shrugged helplessly. "Anything we want."

"And what is it you think I want?" She seemed genuinely curious.

Marshall thought for a moment before saying, "You want what everybody wants: a love that consumes you, passion, adventure and maybe even a little danger."

Mary laughed, but it sounded forced and there was a spark of something in her eyes that hadn't been there before. Marshall wanted to call it interest, but he might have been imagining it. "Is  _that_  what everybody wants? And here most of us ants are running around trying to get rich and famous."

"Where would you want to go?"

"What?"

"If you and I went on a date," Marshall clarified, realizing his non-sequitur probably hadn't made any sense outside of his brain; something about this woman was turning his sharp mind to mush, "where would you want to go?"

"I don't…" She paused, seemed to steel herself and the said in a rush, "Standard Diner, seven-thirty." Before Marshall could say a word she turned, pushed open the door, and disappeared out into the street.

Marshall didn't move until someone behind him cleared their throat to get his attention. He stepped out of the woman's way with a distracted apology. His mind was busy with other things: namely all the reasons he shouldn't go to the Standard Diner that night at seven-thirty warring with all the reasons he knew he would.


	2. Chapter 2

_7:30 PM  
Standard Diner_

Mary wasn't there when Marshall arrived. He sat in a corner booth, his back to the wall and the whole diner spread out before him, and ordered a coffee and a slice of coconut cream pie. He had no idea if she would come, but the thought of her walking through those doors set his heart racing. This was really happening. He was sitting in a diner waiting for a married woman to show up for their date. If his father could see him right now it wouldn't matter that Marshall was a fully grown man, taller than his father by an inch and a half, Seth would have him out back finding a switch of just the right thickness to hurt like hell without breaking the skin. Then again, disappointing Seth Mann was something Marshall was used to. It certainly was not enough to make him change course – even if every working grey cell in his head told him he should get up right now and leave before reality broke through and brought this whole fantasy world he was living in crashing down on his head.

The waitress returned with his coffee and pie and Marshall's eyes flicked to the clock above the counter: 7:40 PM. He took a sip of coffee and tried to remind himself of all the reasons it was good if Mary didn't show up.

It didn't work. But five minutes later, he didn't care, because she was here.

Marshall had just taken the first bite of pie when Mary appeared in the door. She was wearing a baseball cap pulled low over her forehead and a pair of shiny aviators despite the fact the sun had disappeared twenty minutes ago. Marshall took in the disguise, his lips curling into a smile.  _Adorable_. He raised his hand in an awkward little waive and she made her way over.

"Gave up on me did you?" She asked, eying the partially eaten coconut cream pie and half empty coffee cup in front of him.

He tried his best to look apologetic, but he was having a hard time concealing how glad he was to see her. "It was the last piece of coconut." He said as if this explained everything.

She slid into the booth across from him and before Marshall even knew what hit him, plucked the fork out of his unresisting fingers. Marshall watched her with fond amusement as she shoveled a giant chunk of his pie into her mouth. She closed her eyes, savouring the creamy dessert. She swallowed and then looked up, a sheepish expression on her face. "Jesus, that is good pie."

Marshall pushed the pie towards her. "Coffee?"

She nodded, still looking a little embarrassed. But obviously not  _that_  embarrassed judging by the fact she pulled the plate even closer and took another generous bite.

Marshall caught the waitress's eye. She came over with a second cup and a pot of hot coffee.

"Thanks, Margie." Marshall said, smiling up at the waitress. "Is there any peach pie left?"

"Of course. Ice cream?"

Marshall raised an eyebrow at Mary who shook her head no. "No, just the pie." He said.

"You're one of  _those_  men?" Mary asked.

"Sorry?" Marshall's brow creased.

"My father in law does that, calls waitresses by their first name." She wrinkled her nose. "And people in grocery stores… anyone with a name tag really."

"And that's bad, is it?"

"I think it means you have a pathological need for people to like you."

"Or, and this is just a thought." He flashed her a sassy smile. "I could just be friendly."

She snorted and shovelled the last bite of coconut cream pie into her mouth.

The waitress arrived just then to top up their coffee and slide a slice of peach pie and an extra fork onto the table. Marshall thanked her, by name; Mary rolled her eyes.

"So," Marshall speared a piece of peach. "Apart from the apparently foreign social niceties, how do you like Albuquerque?"

"Is it always so… quiet?" Mary asked, her fork joining his in demolishing the new pie.

"How do you mean?"

"At night, there's hardly any traffic noise. It's like the whole city rolls into bed at nine and then all there are is damned coyotes and cicadas and I feel like I'm trying to fall asleep in the middle of a really boring Western."

Marshall laughed. "I guess we are a sleepy city compared to what you're used to. But I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe cicadas as quiet."

"They're noisy," she admitted, "but still…"

"It's not the big city you're used to." Marshall supplied.

"Yeah." Mary looked wistful. "There's just nothing but sky and  _nature_  and people who haven't changed their style since the late eighties. It's hard to get used to. And it's hotter than hell. Seriously, what is with the air here?"

Marshall didn't reply. There wasn't really any way to defend his beloved desert to her, at least not sitting in an air conditioned diner. He wondered if she would come if he asked her to go for a drive out into the desert with him. If she could get out of the city lights and see the stars, hear a coyote call that wasn't competing with sirens and drunk neighbours and million other little noises characteristic of city lights. If she could see the desert the way he saw it, maybe she would be happier. And surely there was nothing wrong with wanting to make a new witness happy, even if she wasn't his witness… and she had no idea he was with WITSEC… and he wanted her to like more than just her new home. Okay, so Stan would not approve, but what Stan would never know wouldn't hurt him.

"What?" Mary asked when he still hadn't spoken after several minutes. "Do I pie on my face or something?"

"No, you're perfect."

"So why are you staring at me like that?"

"How am I staring?"

"Like I'm…" she flushed and trailed off. "I don't know. It's weird."

"I feel like…" Marshall paused. This was insane. Objectively he knew that, and as soon as he said it out loud she would know it too. But he'd come this far, and somehow he couldn't seem to stop himself from blundering onward. "I feel like I've been waiting for you."

"That's insane." She said bluntly.

Mentally Marshall nodded in agreement. "I know. Doesn't stop me from feeling it though."

"What, do your parents write for Halmark or something?" Mary asked. She was looking at him like she wasn't quite sure if she should laugh him off or just run now. "Where did you come up with such a cheesy line."

Marshall shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers, a soft smile on his lips. "I know it sounds crazy, believe me, I know." He paused to give her a chance to respond. When she didn't be continued. "Will you come somewhere with me? There's something I want to show you."

It took a long time for Mary to respond. At least it felt like forever to Marshall who died a thousand painful deaths waiting to see if she would trust him. He had come on too strong, and the pessimistic side of him was just waiting for her to run. This was her out. He just hoped to heaven she didn't take it.

"Is this the part where you burry me in a shallow grave somewhere in the desert where no one will think to look?"

Her eyes sparkled with humour and Marshall felt a wave of relief. She hadn't said it, exactly, but he took the question as acceptance. "That's date two." He quipped.

"Well then, lead on." She rose to her feet and motioned for him to lead the way into the parking lot.  
Marshall threw a twenty on the table, and the led the way out of the restaurant. He opened the car door for her. The gesture earned him another eye roll (and a muttered comment about second wave feminism that he didn't quite catch but probably didn't want to hear anyway) as she brushed past him, so close he could smell the green apple scent of her conditioner, and climbed into the leather passenger seat.

They didn't talk much on the drive. Mary fidgeted with the radio, reprogramming three of his pre-set stations so she could switch every time an ad came on. Marshall focused on the road in front of him and on  _not_  thinking about how much he wanted to tangle his fingers in her apple scented hair. The latter was pretty much a lost cause and he gave himself a mental pat on the back for keeping both hands on the wheel as they sped down the highway, putting the city behind them.

When they finally escaped the light pollution of the city, at least as much as they could without dedicating half the night to travel, Marshall pulled the SUV off to the side of the road and killed the engine.

"What, is it our second date already?" Mary joked, but there was an edge of unease to her voice.

Marshall laughed and then explained. "The desert comes alive at night. I thought maybe if you got to know it, you might miss the familiar city noises a little less."

"We drove all the way out here to  _listen_  to the desert." She did not look impressed.

He wasn't dissuaded. This was a good idea, he could feel it in his gut. He pocketed his keys and opened the door of the SUV. "That, and to look at the stars." Marshall stepped out onto the pavement and looked up at the sky. "I bet you've never seen this many in your life."

It was a perfect night for star gazing. Not a single cloud marred the deep blue of the sky and the moon had yet to rise. The only light came from the stars.

Marshall circled the truck and opened Mary's door. "Come on out," he said, amused to find she was still wearing her seatbelt.

Mary unbuckled and stepped slowly into the cool night air. "Jesus! It's freezing." She crossed her arms, rubbing her upper arms briskly.

"There's a coat in the trunk." Marshall popped the hatch and pulled out his US Marshal's jacket from its usual home on top of his go bag where he kept it when the weather outside was too warm to wear it. He never knew when he might need to be a visible law enforcement presence.

"Official." Mary said, plucking the coat from his hand. "I'm not going to get in trouble for wearing this am I? Impersonating an officer of the law or something."

"Would I do that?"

She zipped the jacket up. "No idea. We just met. Maybe you have a handcuff fetish or something." She flashed him a flirtatious smile.

Marshall had a brief, vivid image of her handcuffed to his headboard. He wasn't really a man for bondage, but he thought he might not mind having this woman confined to his bed.

"Has anyone ever told you that you blush like a twelve year old girl?"

Marshall rolled his eyes. "Shut up and look at the stars."

They leaned side by side against the back of the truck, half sitting on the bumper, heads tilted up, eyes fixed on the sky.

"I've never really understood star gazing." Mary said a minute later after dutifully staring at the sparkling expanse overhead.

"What's to understand?" Marshall asked, looking down at her. "You find a spot away from the city, and look at the sky. Enjoy the majesty of the universe."

"The majesty of the universe?" Her lips twitched with amusement. "Seriously, who are you?"

Marshall ignored the dig. "Look," he leaned in and pointed upwards so she could follow his line of sight. "That star there, in the middle of Cassiopeia."

"Cassiopeia, that's the W, right?"

"Yes. The star in the middle. Technically that is Gamma Cassiopeiae, but it was nicknamed Navi by American Astronaut Virgil Grissom, and in Chinese it is Tsih which means 'the whip.'" Marshall drew in a breath through his nose, his senses flooded with her scent. "It's 550 light-years away from earth. For all we know, it burnt out centuries ago and what we see is just an echo, radiating across space."

"They teach you all that at the Marshal's academy?"

"I like stars." Marshall said as if that explained everything.

"Okay. What about that one?" Mary pointed and Marshall leaned in until he could follow where her finger lead.

"That is Bellatrix. Sometimes also called the 'Amazon star' and forms the left shoulder of Orion."

Mary's head rested on Marshall's shoulder and even when she dropped her arm, she didn't pull away.

He continued. "There are many versions of the Orion myth, but all agree that Orion was a great hunter before he was killed, either by a scorpion or by an arrow from the bow of Artemis."

"Cheerful."

"Myths are supposed to teach us things. Orion is killed because he becomes too arrogant. His ultimate death teaches us-"

A coyote howled in the distance. "Even the coyotes want you to stop talking." Mary said, elbowing him lightly in the ribs.

"Actually, she's probably just telling the rest of the pack that we're here."

"Ah, so that's their dinner call?"

"Scared?" Marshall teased.

"Of a pack of carnivorous dogs who are howling like something out of hell?" Mary leaned a little harder into Marshall's side, though her voice remained light. "Never."

Marshall turned his head to look at her. His lips brushed her forehead and he felt rather than heard her sharp intake of breath.

Mary turned her head towards him. Their eyes locked and Mary licked her lower lip. She leaned in, her lips a breath away from his.

Suddenly Marshall pulled back.

Mary's eyes narrowed with a sudden flash of hurt. "I thought…"

Marshall took one of her hands in his. "I want to." He said, softly. "I just… You're married."

Mary pulled away from him, rising to her feet and jerking her hand free. "You  _knew_  that. You knew that when you asked me out."

Marshall ran both hands through his hair. His mind was racing in a hundred different directions. He wanted to kiss her. Of course he did. But he knew the moment he did, this would become real: he would be the kind of guy who tried to steal another man's wife. He'd make her the kind of woman who cheated on her husband. And as much as he wanted to know what it would be like, to press his lips to hers and lose himself in her kiss, he didn't know if he could take that step. That wasn't the man he was raised to be. That wasn't the man he wants to be.

"So when you said we should do the wrong thing that was what, a test? See if you could get a married woman?" Mary was in full rant mode, arms gesturing emphatically as she moved from hurt to angry. "Was that it?"

"No!" Marshall couldn't find the words to express the emotions flooding through him.  _How could she believe that?_ "Mary, I—"

"Forget it." She interrupted him. "Just… take me back. This was a mistake."

They drove back to the city in silence. It was only when they pulled into the parking lot at the Standard Diner and Mary reached for the door that Marshall spoke. "I meant everything I said."

Mary's face was blank and when she spoke her tone was businesslike showing not a trace of her earlier emotion. "I think you did." And with that she opened the door and climbed from the car. Marshall sat in the SUV staring out the windshield without seeing anything, calling himself every name for idiot he could think of until long after Mary's blue sedan had disappeared into the night.

The apartment was empty when Mary got home. For the first time since they had moved to Albuquerque, she was glad Mark had developed a rapid friendship with a few of his coworkers which kept him out until long after midnight several nights a week. She was still stinging from Marshall's rejection, though more in anger at herself for going out with him in the first place than for any other reason. On the off chance Mark actually noticed she was alive, she didn't want to have to explain why she couldn't muster a silly joke or a genuine smile through her disappointment.

She shook her head at her own thoughts. That last bit wasn't fair to Mark. She didn't begrudge him his friends. Mark had always been good at drawing people to him in a way Mary hadn't. If Mark was honey, Mary was a thistle. He drew people to him with his warm smile and good sense of humour; Mary stung anyone who came too close with her barbed humour and open distain for idiocy. It wasn't just that Mary didn't make friends easily either, it was that she really, for the most part, didn't want them to begin with.

No, she didn't begrudge Mark his easy friendships. But sometimes she wished he'd realize that she had a life in New Jersey too and now it was gone. She would never see her sister or her mother again.  _Well… that might be a blessing really, for all of us._  But she missed them all the same. She worried about Brandi. Her sister was a mess of a human being, always calling up Mary for everything from a short term loan to advice on her latest train wreck of a relationship. When things with Mark were especially bleak – after almost 17 years of marriage, bleak was bound to happen – Mary thought she stayed with him because it gave Brandi the stability their alcoholic mother and missing in action, bank robber father had never been able to. And then of course she snapped out of it and reminded herself of all the reasons she and Mark were perfect for each other. Although, she couldn't help noticing that over the last five years that list had grown progressively shorter.

And then the unthinkable had happened. And she didn't mean unthinkable in the way most people do (as in the horrible possibility that could very well happen but you dare not think about it because it just might), but literally unimaginable. If someone had told her six months ago that Mark would witness a murder at his work and she would be scooped up by a US Marshal in a bad suit at eight in the morning before she'd even had her first cup of coffee and told she could never go home again, she would have told them in language none too polite to go sleep it off. Yet, that was what had happened. And now she was here, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And for a brief time tonight, with stars overhead, coyotes' cries for music, and Marshall's shoulder as a pillow she hadn't minded one bit. But now she was 'home,' in the sparse, depressing WITSEC sponsored apartment she and Mark would share until they could save up enough money to go it on their own again, she realized what she should have known the first time Marshall spoke to her: she was a deluded fool.

Actually, marriage at eighteen might have been her first clue. It certainly did not bespeak any great wisdom. But Mark had been very much the man he was today: confident, sweet, persuasive, and seven years her senior. He'd had a motor cycle and a band back then and Mary had been convinced he was the perfect man. And truthfully, they had had a good marriage, for the most part.

No matter how bad the dark times got, and there had been times as dark and hopeless as black holes, she would never forget the time she told Mark she didn't want to have children. She'd been expecting a blow up, or at least a look that told her she had crushed one of his lifelong dreams. Instead, he'd kissed her firmly and said "Why would we need a kid? We have Brandi." Of course, she had pretended to be annoyed at him for making fun of her sister, but she didn't think she had even loved him more than she did in those few seconds.

Still, sixteen years was a long time to be just the two of you. Mark was successful at work, his honeyed tones and stylish dress were perfectly suited to a job in sales and he earned enough that Mary's paychecks went straight into their 'fun fund' for vacations or big renovations. He had been pressuring her to work less and less over the past few years, which had caused conflict. She knew people thought security guards were simply idiots who couldn't hack police training and weren't allowed to carry a gun, but Mary loved her job working security at the local bank. The irony of the daughter of James Shannon working anywhere near a bank, let alone as one of its guards, was not lost on her, but thankfully the issue didn't come up during the background check.

She had resented it sometimes, the casual way Mark treated her job and her earnings, as if it was some fun little hobby and not a serious job. She'd never been particularly political, but the occasional condescending comment from her husband usually triggered a flash of militant feminist zeal that made her want to burn her bra in protest. But he meant well, or she thought he did. She assured herself time and again that Mark didn't see her as a trophy wife, he just wanted to take care of her; it wasn't his fault she'd been taking care of her mom and sister since she was five and didn't know how to be the one taken care of. It also wasn't his fault that just when the domesticity of it all stopped chaffing they were whisked away to Albuquerque and she had to carve out a whole new way to be happy. Which admittedly would have been easier if Mark had found the move even a little difficult. She didn't begrudge him his friends, but she envied his ability to make them, and wished he realized how much harder this was for her.

Which was why she'd fallen for Marshall's act, for an act she believed it to be. It had been so nice to be  _seen_. Marshall had fixed those incredibly blue eyes on her and told her he was the man to make her happy and like a fool she had believed him. She'd never been looked at like that before. Not even by Mark. It was like he could see her soul. It was terrifying. It made her want to strip him naked and do all kinds of nasty things to him. Somehow she felt like seeing him naked, mouth open, begging beneath her might make that penetrating ice-blue stare feel less… whatever it was that she felt, if there was a word for it, she didn't know it. When she closed her eyes those eyes seemed burned into the back of her eyelids and the emotion in them which she refused to name sent shivers down her spine.  
She wasn't sure which part made her feel more foolish, that she thought she had discovered the kind of connection that only exists in the movies she pretends not to like because they're totally unrealistic, or because she believed him that she deserved real happiness. It was probably the latter, because thinking that had required her to accept a thought she had been ruthlessly cutting down for years: she wasn't happy. And now she'd let the thought out she didn't think she could force it down again. She, Mary Stuber, once Mary Shannon now Mary Sheppard, was not happy. She hadn't been happy, not  _truly_  happy, in years. And the worst part of this realization, apart from the aching hole in her gut, was that she couldn't remember being happy well enough to know when she had stopped.

No, that wasn't quite right. She'd been happy tonight. In the diner, eating Marshall's coconut cream pie, and in the desert, listening to his deep voice telling her of long dead gods.  _That_  was the worst part. Because he didn't want  _her_. He was just after the chase. She'd known men like him. Hell, if she hadn't married Mark she might  _be_  him. As sleep pressed its warm dark weight down on her eyelids, Mary made a decision.  _If it's the chase you want, Marshall, game on_.

_Ten Days Later_

Fate was kind of a bitch, Mary thought, chasing a bite of vanilla donut down with a large swig of dark roast coffee. Before their date, if a night that started with pie and ended with a humiliating almost kiss could be called a date, when Mary had been certain she wanted nothing to do with the tall, slightly gawky man, she had seen Marshall everywhere. She'd literally run into him one day, and every other day seemed to bring at least a passing glimpse of him as they just missed each other at Starbucks, the grocery store, and she'd even seen him driving down the street while she waited for the bus. Now she had decided the only way to get him out of her head was to get him in bed, he had disappeared off the face of the earth.

Not a day had passed without Mary making at least one stop at Starbucks. She and Mark had even had a fight about it last night, which was ridiculous. Mary had been spoiling for a good fight for days and when Mark suggested, the third time her tossing in the night woke him, that she might sleep better if she lay off the coffee habit, Mary had bitten his head off. It had escalated quickly. Mary hadn't slept well in ten days. There were inscrutable blue eyes burned into her eyelids and a persistent nagging fear of what might slip from her lips if she did sleep, so Mary tossed and turned, never managing more than a few minutes at a time of actual sleep. Consequently, Mark didn't sleep either and the moment the fight started it seemed to take on a life of its own. Soon they were arguing vehemently over Mary's late hours and the fact that she came home smelling of vodka, cigarettes and cannabis, and then Mary snarled, "At least I don't come home reeking of cheap perfume," which started a whole new argument about Mark's new friends. "I could have stayed in New Jersey!" Mary snapped, "It's not like you'd miss me."

When they had screamed themselves out, around four thirty in the morning, the fight ended like all of their fights. "Jesus you're hot when you're angry." Mark growled, tangling his hand in her hair and pulling her in for a kiss. Mary's body responded to his familiar touch, but though he knew just how to touch her to make her body shudder and shake with waves of pleasure before crashing into orgasm, she couldn't shake a vague feeling that this was wrong, like she was cheating.

The problem that kept her awake long after Mark began to snore was that she was pretty sure it wasn't wanting to cheat on Mark that left her feeling so guilty. Somehow, against all logic and certainly against her will, the tiny, stupid, and ultimately futile flirtation she had shared with Marshall had become the real relationship. Even as she had gasped in pleasure as Mark thrust into her, she had closed her eyes and in her mind's eye the soft hair between her fingers was brown.

Draining the last few drops of coffee from her cup, Mary rose to her feet. Burt's opened in an hour and she had promised Teddy, one of the two bouncers at Burt's, she would help him set up the stage for that night's performers. If she didn't get a move on she would be late, yet she couldn't quite bring herself to move at full speed as she wound her way through the rows of tiny round tables to the exit, eyes peeled for a familiar head of brown hair and a pair of perplexing blue eyes.

_Ten Hours Later…_

"Goodnight." Mary said, waving to Teddy. She was the kind of woman who took pride in taking care of herself, but it was nice to have men like Teddy around just in case anything came up she couldn't shut down solo, so she did her best to keep the snark in check and stay on good terms with both of Burt's bouncers.

"See you tomorrow." Teddy said, climbing into his green jeep.

Mary turned to the bus stop for the fifteen minute ride home and then stopped. Barely twenty feet away was Marshall, leaning against the grill of a back SUV, legs stretched out, one crossed over the other. Those eyes, the ones that had been haunting her dreams, bored into her even from this distance. "I looked for you." She said as she walked towards him. There was accusation, hurt, and anger in her voice.

"I know." His was filled with a kind of longing and pain she didn't understand; it was as if the look in his eyes had been distilled into sound and it hurt somewhere in her gut to hear it.

"Why are you here?" She stopped short, crossed her arms over her chest and focused on his nose so she wouldn't have to deal with those eyes. They made her feel powerless and that was terrifying.

"I tried not to be."

She shifted her gaze an inch up and to the right, his eyes were glued to her. She felt the kick to the gut again, but this time she didn't look away. She wanted him. She wanted him more than she could remember wanting  _anything_. "Take me to your place." She said. It was a command, or it was meant to be. It came out a little breathless and she hated herself for letting her desire show.

But he nodded, those electrifying eyes never leaving her face, and she suddenly didn't care if he knew how much she wanted him. She was going to ride this cowboy until those beautiful blue eyes crossed and he saw stars. Then she would have the power, and all would be right in the world. Mark was never home before one on Fridays. Sometimes he didn't come home at all. He wouldn't miss her, and if he did she would just tell him she crashed with a co-worker. She was pretty sure he wouldn't care enough to probe further.

Marshall's home was clean, almost Spartan. Not that Mary noticed. She had him pressed against the wall almost before he could close the door. Hands ripped at shirts and fumbled with buckles as he steered her towards the first door in the hall. Her lips nipped at his throat, it was as high as she could reach without standing on her toes. She licked his clavicle and he groaned. He wrapped his hand in her hair and his lips crashed down on hers. Mary thought she saw stars. Then again that could have just been oxygen deprivation, she definitely forgot to breathe. He pressed her back into the mattress, pushed her panties aside and entered her. She cried out, clinging to his shoulders. He used one arm on the headboard for leverage and somehow it wasn't about power anymore, it was about every inch of him rubbing against every inch of her, waves of sensation crashing one on top of the other. Her toes curled. She dug her fingers into his back.  _Oh GOD! Like that, yes,yes,yes,yes, oh sweet mother of Jesus, oh, oh, oooooh._

He collapsed half on top of her, half beside and claimed her lips in another kiss that seemed to pull the oxygen from her very blood. She ran her hand over his lightly haired chest, exploring. She would give him time to recover, but then they were doing that again. Only this time, she was going to be on top.

_Thirteen Days Later…_

"So what exactly does a US Marshal do?" It was Friday afternoon. Mark was working at the dealership and Mary was sprawled, stark naked, on Marshall's bed, watching appreciatively as he dressed to go back to work.

"Marshals are the enforcement arm of the federal courts." Marshall said, shrugging on a fresh shirt. He cast a glance at the one he'd been wearing this morning, blushing at he imagined explaining to Rosa, his tailor, why he suddenly needed so many buttons replaced. "The agency was formed by the Judiciary Act passed by Congress on September 24, 1789. That act gave marshals, who were appointed and served a four year term, the power to enforce the court's decisions and to deputise civilians to help him when needed. The name marshal was actually inspired by a letter George Washington wrote in 1785 to Congr-."

Mary threw a pillow at him. "I didn't ask for the complete and unabridged history, doofus. I asked what  _you_  do when you're not here with me."

Marshall kept his eyes glued on the buttons of his shirt. He hated this part, lying to her, but the longer he kept it up, the more he got to know her, the more afraid he was that the moment she learned the truth she would be gone. "I'm pretty much a glorified security guard." He said, choosing the closest thing to the truth he could think of. "I'm there to protect the judge. Sometimes I execute writs or help with prisoner transport to and from the courthouse."

"So you're like a federal body guard?" Mary asked, rising from the bed.

Marshall looked up and for a moment his brain stuttered to a halt. He didn't think he would ever get used to how beautiful she was, or get sick of looking at her. Marshall wasn't inexperienced, he'd been with over a dozen women since losing his virginity to Katinka, the foreign exchange student from Iceland, at fourteen, but he had never been with a woman who was so comfortable in her own skin. Mary walked towards him, her full breasts bouncing ever so slightly with every step, moving in the way only real breasts could. His eyes slid from her breasts over the curve of her hips to the dark thatch of curls between her legs. Everything about her radiated woman, real, natural, mature, sexy woman. Marshall inwardly cursed his witnesses for needing him when he would so much rather stay here, but need him they did and so, with an effort, he tore his eyes away from her glorious, naked body and reached for his pants.

Mary pulled on her own clothes deliberately slowly, enjoying the shades of red she could evoke in his pale cheeks. She'd never been with a man who showed emotions so readily on his face. She thought she could get used to this.

Once they were both fully clothed and Marshall had brushed his hair into something other than a just-thoroughly-fucked-disarray, he pulled Mary in for a lingering kiss. "I have to go out of town for a few days." He told her when they broke apart.

Mary studied his face silently before asking in a teasing voice, "Not trying to get rid of me already are you?"

He kissed her again, pouring every bit of emotion he could into it. "Never." He said in a husky voice, pulling her against his chest and burying his nose in her hair. He breathed her in, eyes closed. It was only a five day transfer, taking one of Charlie's witnesses to Cincinnati to give testimony, but still, he would miss her sardonic commentary and her presence in his bed.

Since that night, thirteen days ago they had spent every moment they could together. It wasn't enough. She couldn't always get away, not without Mark getting suspicious. Though Marshall knew, even better perhaps than Mary, how dangerous it would be for them if Mark realized what was going on, the hours he knew she was with her husband were agony. Jealousy was a poisonous monster whose venom burned hot in his veins and kept him awake at night with unwanted visions of the cocky blond hipster caressing her curves with meaty hands.

Unconsciously Marshall tightened his hold on her. "What will you do while I'm gone?"

Mary brought her hands up to rest on his chest, placing enough distance between them that she could look him in the eye. "Work mostly. Why, are you worried I'll find someone else?"

Marshall's jaw tensed at the thought.

A coquettish smile spread over Mary's face. "You're not jealous, are you?" She teased, running a finger across his lower lip.

"Very." Marshall kissed the tip of her finger. "I envy every man, woman, and child who looks at you; every wind that tussles that beautiful blond hair; every piece of clothing that caresses your skin; I envy each and every single quark that is near you when I am not."

Mary wanted to make a sarcastic reply, especially to the last bit, she was pretty sure there was no such thing as a 'quark,' unless it was a reference to some Dr. Seuss book she's repressed from childhood, but somehow the words wouldn't come. It was those eyes. They burned with sincerity and she knew that he meant every stupidly cheesy syllable.


	3. Chapter 3

The Cincinnati airport was crowded. Apparently there was a big conference starting the same day as the trial. Marshall was both thankful for the crush of bodies which made it easy for he, Charlie, and State's witness Vern Fredericks to look inconspicuous as they made their way quickly to a waiting town car, and annoyed they hadn't planned to arrive at a time when scanning for threats was easier. If they could lose themselves in a large crowd, so could any one of Calitri's guys.

Vern Fredericks had earned his place in the Witness Protection Program by ratting on his boss, Christopher Calitri, who ran a three million a year marijuana pipeline down from Canada through the central United States. Vern reported his boss to the feds the day after he found out his wife of ten years was having an affair with Calitri. He'd been in the program almost three years, waiting for the DA in cooperation with the Canadian RCMP to gather enough evidence to take Calitri to court and win. Vern was one of the first witnesses Marshall had handed over to Charlie when the young marshal transferred in to Albuquerque. Vern was a bitter man, but a model witness. He'd once told Marshall, "I will follow any rule you set, so long as you promise I never have to see that blonde bitch ex of mine again." And to Marshall's knowledge Vern hadn't so much as received a speeding ticket or creeped a former friend's Facebook page in 39 months.

Still, when it came to trial day, Marshall wasn't letting his guard down for anything. Even model witnesses were vulnerable when their would-be-killer knew the date, time, and location of their testimony. No matter how much the Marshal Service obscured the origin of their departure, they couldn't do anything about their destination except try to arrive earlier or later than the other side might expect. This part of the job was always tense. Marshall's heart thudded half again its normal speed as he stepped through the sliding glass doors three steps in front of Charlie and Vern and scanned for anything suspicious.

In front of the door a blonde woman was loading a suitcase into the trunk of a yellow mustang, twenty feet to his left a pair of conference attendees were taking the last few drags of a much needed post-flight cigarette, and to his right a small queue was forming by the taxi stand as a uniformed airport working waived cars in and out of the taxi line as quickly as possible, their town car was just on the other side of the street, the driver looking every bit the bored chauffer he was supposed to be, leaning against the passenger side window, holding up a sign that said 'Cadigan.' Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, Marshall gave Charlie an almost imperceptible nod.

Charlie and his witness cleared the sliding doors and then everything went wrong.

It happened so fast Marshall would have trouble remembering discreet events in the right order. The moment would exist forever in his memory as a series of vivid disjointed images. The blonde shut the trunk of her car with a bang. Vern's voice from behind Marshall: "Mary!?" Searing pain, panicked screams and so much blood.

Stan would later tell Marshall that Charlie had pulled the witness down, but not in time to stop the same bullet that grazed Marshall's bicep from embedding in Vern's chest. The only thing Stan didn't understand, and though Marshall knew he wouldn't tell, was why Marshall hadn't been in the direct line of fire. The security video showed the tall marshal whirling around as if he'd caught sight of something or heard something behind him, just half a moment before Vern's ex-wife Maryanne Henderson fired three bullets straight at them.

"Do you remember what caught your attention?"

Marshall shook his head. It was the first time he had ever directly lied to Stan, but he couldn't bring himself to admit that when Vern had exclaimed in horror at the sight of his ex-wife, a very different blonde invaded Marshall's thoughts and for a split second he forgot he was in Cincinnati, responsible for getting their witness safely to his trial. For that split second all he'd seen was Mary Sheppard's smile and the way her breasts moved when she walked.

"Whatever it was, it probably saved your life." Stan said.

"But not Vern's."

Stan didn't respond. There was nothing he could say. Losing a witness was never easy. Losing a witness on the day before the trial was a nightmare. But Stan couldn't bring himself to be too torn up about the fact that a former drug runner had been killed instead of a loyal friend and valued US Marshal. He squeezed Marshall's shoulder. "Doctor says you can go home tomorrow. They just want to keep you one more night just to make sure."

Marshall nodded. "I figured as much." He had barely noticed his own injuries in his desperate attempt to keep Vern alive until the ambulance arrived and by the time the paramedics finally convinced him to get into the ambulance he had lost a dangerous amount of blood. The emergency room doctor who had cleaned and stitched his wound had looked like he wanted to commit Marshall when he asked if he could fly home that night. One night had turned into three when Marshall spiked a fever and then tore his stitches trying to get out of bed. "You didn't need to come, you know. I'm not going to try and make a run for it."

Stan laughed, but it came out forced and suddenly every hair on Marshall's body was on end.

"What happened?" He asked, pushing himself up on his good arm into something like a sitting position.

Stan sighed. "I wasn't even going to tell you this until you got back, but…" He pulled out a newspaper clipping. "This was in the  _Journal_  yesterday."

Marshall took the paper. He stared at it for a solid thirty seconds before swearing under his breath. "God dammit!" There, in stark black and white, smiling proudly above a custard-stained Chillz Frozen Custard bib and holding an empty bowl proudly in both hands was Mark Sheppard. "How did this happen?"

Stan took the paper back from Marshall, folded it and shoved it in the breast pocket of his jacket. "It gets worse."

The sick feeling in the pit of Marshall's stomach that had appeared as soon as he realized Mark, and therefore Mary, might have to be relocated, settled into an icy knot. "We're leaving tonight." He said, swinging his feet over the side of the bed.

"Nothing is confirmed yet." Stan said quickly, placing a restraining hand on Marshall's shoulder. "You aren't going anywhere."

"Stan!" Marshall protested.

"At least not until we confirm there's something to be worried about. The last report on Mascari's whereabouts is less than forty-eight hours old. You know how the New Jersey office is."

"His picture is splashed all over the  _Albuquerque Journal_! And New Jersey can't find Mascari."

"Charlie can…" Stan trailed off at the look on Marshall's face. As much as both of them liked Charlie, the young marshal was not up to this particular challenge. Not yet. At least, not without backup. Two different witnesses endangered and they couldn't be put in the same safe house because Mark's wife finding out about his affair was another potential security breach they did not need right now. He needed Marshall. Really, he'd known as soon as he stepped on the plane that he needed his senior officer, but Stan was more than a boss to Marshall, they were friends and seeing how rough Marshall looked… He ran a hand over his balding head, fighting to separate his feelings from what he knew needed to be done. Sometimes being the boss really sucked.

"Charlie is a good kid," Marshall said, putting voice to Stan's thoughts, "but you know as well as I do that this is no normal case and he can't protect the Sheppards  _and_  Britney. You need me."

Stan knew it was true, but he couldn't bring himself to say it.

"Look, the bullet grazed me. If I hadn't needed a transfusion they would have let me go as soon as the stitches were in." Marshall rose to his feet. There was a sudden wave of dizziness but he drew a deep breath through his nose and didn't so much as waver on his feet. "I'll take a back seat, but unless you have a senior marshal hiding somewhere that I don't know about, I'm going back to Albuquerque to take care of my witness."

Stan sighed. "Fine, but I am giving you an extra security detail and you will use them, got it?"

Marshall nodded.

Less than an hour later Marshall had signed an AMA form, traded the hospital gown for his favourite t-shirt (usually reserved for sleeping in since the Superman logo on the front wasn't exactly consistent with the grown up, professional image he tried to portray anywhere his witnesses might see him) and a pair of jeans, and he and Stan were on their way to the airport.

_Sunshine Building, Albuquerque, NM_

"What the hell is going on?" Mark's loud voice echoed off the glass walls of the conference room. "I was supposed to be at work twenty minutes ago. Peter is going to kick my ass for leaving him short."

"There's been a security breach." Charlie said in what he hoped was a calm voice. In the six months he'd been working at Albuquerque WITSEC there had only been one breach, and he had sat in the background while Marshall explained to a seventeen year old why her audition for America's Next Top Model meant her family needed to move to Denver. It had gotten pretty ugly and at one point it had taken all three of them, he, Marshall, and Stan, to convince the girl and her mother not to leave the program just weeks after their trial. This time, Charlie was all on his own.

"What does that mean?" Mary asked. Unlike Mark, who had been pacing like a caged lion since the moment Charlie brought them in, Mary had been quiet and calm, if a little pale.

Charlie handed her a copy of the story from the previous day's paper.

"You won a frozen custard eating competition?" Mary asked, shooting Mark an amused look.

Mark leaned over her shoulder to look at the page. "Huh. I didn't really think they were serious. What kind of city prints a half page story about a custard eating competition in the paper?" He asked Charlie.

Before Charlie could recover his composure enough to answer, Mary added a question of her own. "How is this a security breach? They didn't even get his name right." She pointed to the photo tagline which read 'Marcus Sheffield wins Chillz Frozen Custard Contest.'

"I'm not an idiot," Mark said leaning against the window and crossing his arms across his chest. "I gave them a fake name. Isn't that what you people do?"

"We—I—You—" Charlie stammered. Nothing in his training had prepared him for this moment. He tried to imagine what Marshall would do in this situation, but quickly realized Marshall would never have found himself in this situation. Somehow, Marshall would have made it clear from the moment he picked the witnesses up that they were coming in because getting your picture in the local paper, no matter whose name was in the caption, was a violation of the MOU and a serious threat to your security.

A shrill chirp from his phone saved Charlie for the moment, he made his excuse and stepped out into the main office. He moved quickly to his computer. The alert on his phone told him there was an alert, but he had to log into the system itself to see it in full. It was a security measure Charlie had never quite understood, but Marshall insisted it was necessary, and since there was almost always someone directly hooked into the network who could forward on alerts, it was a system that worked pretty well. Unless you found yourself alone with no one but two pissed off witnesses and an office manager for assistance. Almost not daring to breathe, Charlie typed in his password and hit return. The alert flashed up on his screen immediately and Charlie fought off a wave of nausea.

He fumbled for his phone and it took two tries before he successfully dialed Stan's number. It went straight to voicemail and Charlie uttered an uncharacteristic curse. They must be on the plane already, he realized with a mixture of panic and relief. Panic that they would be out of contact for hours and relief that they were already on their way. _They'll be here soon_ , he told himself,  _but right now you need to get in there and explain what's going on to your witness._

Sucking in a deep breath for courage, Charlie re-entered the conference room.

_Four and a half hours later  
Just outside Albuquerque, NM_

"Charlie, it's Stan. What's going on?"

Marshall's head snapped up and he watched Stan's face closely. He could only hear Stan's half of the conversation, but that was enough to set his heart pounding. He couldn't remember ever being this afraid for a witness in his career. Of course, he'd never been in love with a witness before, either.

"Yes. Bring her in. We'll be there in," Stan glanced quickly at the clock on the dashboard, "thirty minutes." He snapped the phone closed and tossed it down on the console between their seats.

Marshall waited in tense silence for Stan to fill him in. Worst case scenarios paraded through his mind, all of them ending with Mary dead or missing and he and Stan arriving two seconds too late.

"State troopers pulled Luca Mascari over for speeding on the I40, 50 miles outside Albuquerque." Stan said. His eyes stayed glued to the road and Marshall could have sworn their speed increased.

"When?" Marshall asked, zeroing in on the important information.

"Five hours ago. Charlie's been trying to get us since about an hour into our flight."

"Fuck!" Marshall clenched and unclenched his fists. It did little to relieve the tension radiating through his entire body.

"Mark and Mary Sheppard were brought in this morning, they're safe. Charlie is going to get Britney right now."

"Where is he taking her?" Marshall asked. "He can't bring her in with Mark's wife."

"We don't have a choice." Stan said, his face grim. "One marshal, three bodies to protect." Stan shot Marshall a quick glance. "I thought you were a fan of honesty."

Marshall was too worried about Mary to pick up on Stan's attempt to ease the tension in the car. "Not at the expense of my witness' safety." He said in a churlish tone. "Jesus Stan! What if Mark's wife walks? We could lose all three of them over this."

"Maybe she already knows." Stan sounded hopeful. "Lots of wives do. Or maybe she won't make the connection."

Marshall shook his head. "Britney's not very good at subtle. She's going to know." And though the selfish part of him rejoiced in the knowledge that Mary would finally know the truth he had been forced to keep from her for all these weeks, Marshall's heart turned over painfully at the thought of what she was going through, what she was about to go through. Being dragged in to the WITSEC offices because your husband was idiotic enough to enter a local eating contest and told you would likely need to pack up your life for the second time in three months and move to another city, with another name, another job, and a whole new life before you'd even settled into the first new start was one thing, learning your husband had been having an affair for years with a younger woman and that she'd entered the program along with you was another. Even if Mary had known Mark was unfaithful, even if she'd known about Britney before the move, Marshall was certain she didn't know Britney was in Albuquerque. What he had no idea about was how she would react when she found out Marshall had known all along and not told her.

_Sunshine Building…_

"I can't believe this is happening," Mark groaned for the hundredth time since Charlie had told them Luca Mascari had been spotted on the outskirts of Albuquerque.

Mary had long given up trying to calm him down. Her own anxiety was ticking up with every hour that passed. She remembered Luca, the younger brother of Mark's boss, Alberto Mascari, the man whose pending trial for the murder of his business partner Clarissa Harris and a laundry list of other misdemeanors was the reason they were in the witness protection program. Mary had met Luca just once, at an office Christmas party the first year Mark worked for the Mascaris, but once was enough. The man gave her the creeps. Six foot four, easily two hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle, Luca looked and acted like the kind of man who would sooner break you in half than lend you a quarter. She remembered when Mark had come home at midnight, white as a sheet, and told her "Mascari killed Claire" she'd assumed he meant Luca not Alberto.

Alberto Mascari had always seemed like such a nice guy. Mary had even felt a little guilty that she never warmed to him. He was charming and handsome, and ridiculously successful. She'd told Mark it was the twenty-years-younger girlfriends he seemed to cycle through even more quickly than Brandy burned through credit cards, but really there had just been something about the man that seemed  _off_ , just not cold-blooded-killer-off.

Mary drummed her fingers against the conference table. Charlie had left on an unspecified errand twenty minutes ago after assuring them they were in the safest place in Albuquerque and that their office administrator Wendy would get them anything they needed.

The elevator bell dinged, announcing the arrival at their floor and Mary jumped, her heart pounding. Logic told her it was most likely Charlie or the other marshal they had met at their intake, the short balding man whose name she couldn't remember  _…Dan?_ , but still, there was a part of her that was terrified that somehow Luca had found them. As sweet as Wendy seemed, she didn't exactly make Mary feel protected. Then again, Charlie wasn't particularly comforting either. Who Mary really wanted right now was Marshall. But of course that was absurd. Marshall was out of town, escorting some prisoner or something, and even if he'd been in Albuquerque, he wouldn't be  _here_ , he would be on the other side of town keeping order in the courthouse through the sheer force of his presence.

The elevator doors slid open and for Mary it felt like the world was moving in slow motion. But it wasn't Mascari, although she didn't thinks he could have been more shocked if it was. "Britney?" She said, rising to her feet and walking towards the window to get a better look. "What the fuck is she doing here?" Mary turned to face Mark, realization dawning. Before her husband could spit out whichever lie was brewing behind the panicked expression on his face she was across the room, stopping just inches from him. "You brought your mistress into Witness Protection?" She hissed.

He flinched.

"I'm not going to  _hit_  you." Mary said, distain in every syllable. "Jesus!"

"I didn't—" Mark began, but Mary cut him off.

" _Please!_  You think I didn't know about your little piece of ass?" She gave him her best ferocious glare. "Or the three before her?"

"You…" Mark looked mystified. "But…"

"You really don't see me, do you?" Mary asked, sinking into the nearest chair. Suddenly she felt very old and very tired. She'd known, well suspected anyway, that Mark had had affairs throughout their marriage, but she'd always assumed it was just sex. But Britney was here. You didn't bring your mistress into Witness Protection because she was a good fuck or you were sick of your wife of sixteen years' sagging breasts and full hips. She was pretty sure dragging someone into hiding with you meant there was a deep emotional bond.  _That_  was what hurt. Because for the last month of sneaking around behind Mark's back she'd felt  _guilty_. Even when she'd told herself that he'd been sleeping around for years, a voice in her head said that what she was doing, falling in love with another man, was infinitely worse than the cheap sex Mark went for.

If Mark felt for Britney anything like how she felt for Marshall, why the  _fuck_  hadn't he just left Mary behind? She would have been hurt, but she would have survived and he and Britney could have started their new life as the Sheppard family of Albuquerque without anyone ever knowing that weeks earlier Mark had a different life complete with a different name and a different wife.

"Just go, Mark." She gestured towards the door. "Go. See your girlfriend. I'm done standing in your way." As the words left Mary's mouth she knew she meant them. She and Mark had married too young, her dad had been right, it was a mistake. But the real mistake was what followed. They'd never quite fit, and instead of leaving, she'd clung to the marriage out of stubbornness into her twenties and then, after nine years or so, she'd stopped noticing the pieces of herself that were being steadily chiseled away. She wondered what it would have been like if they'd waited. If in her twenties, when she'd gotten some distance from Jinx and Brandi and all the fucked up things from her childhood and really become her own person. Who might she have been then? She would never know. But she did know she was done wasting her life in a marriage that had stopped being about love about a month before they said "I do."

Mark gaped at her. "Mary…"

She smiled at him and it was the most sincere smile she'd given him since they had moved to Albuquerque. "It's okay, Mark." And it was.

Mark would move on. He would find a woman who liked watching endless medical dramas on Thursday nights and who baked cookies without burning at least every other batch. Somehow she doubted it would be Britney, but she was sure the right person for Mark was out there somewhere. As for her…

She had found hers already. Or at least she thought she had. Hoped it. And for the first time she could remember, the future looked limitless. Funny that it had taken giving up everything she thought she needed to find the only thing she really did. And it was terrifying. A tiny part of her wanted to stop Mark as he walked past her and towards the door, stop him and tell him to stay with her – not because she wanted him, but because the alternative scared her shitless.

Marshall's heart was pounding in his ears so loudly it almost drowned out the whirring of the elevator and he and Stan ascended to the top of the Sunshine building. So far there was no word on Mascari which meant their first order of business was to get their witnesses to safe houses for the night. Normally this was as easy as taking a roundabout route to one of the five hotels and motels in the city at which they could completely control security with two or three marshals. Stan had already called in reinforcements to serve as external cover for up to three locations and they would be there within the hour. Neither Marshall nor Stan was willing to guess what it was they were about to walk in to. This wasn't entirely uncharted territory, but even though both men knew it had been the only option, bringing a mistress to the same location as the wife and husband was, to put it euphemistically, not ideal.

For Marshall there was a whole other side to this that was setting his heart thumping: Mary. She knew he was a marshal, but she'd been given, and had no reason not to believe, his usual cover story about working at the court house. When she realized he was a WITSEC inspector rather than the glorified courtroom security guard he had led her to believe, he knew it wouldn't be more than a minute before she also realized that Marshall had known about Mark and Britney all along. He just hoped she would forgive him if he ever got a chance to explain.

Marshall was out of the elevator as soon as the doors slid open far enough to admit his lean frame. His eyes scanned the office, quickly assessing the scene before him. Mark was leaning against Charlie's desk, one arm around the shoulder of a freely sobbing Britney, Charlie was making a pot of coffee, Wendy was on the phone, and Marshall could just make out a blonde head of hair through the blinds that lined the conference room windows. It was only Stan's presence that stopped him from immediately rushing to make sure she was alright.

"Any news?" Stan asked, entering the office a few seconds after Marshall.

Wendy pointed at the phone glued to her ear and rolled her eyes eloquently.

Charlie shook his head. "Not in the last half hour. Albuquerque PD set up roadblocks around the city, but no luck so far."

"Okay." Stan said, moving into full boss-mode. "Let's get these folks settled for the night. We'll work on more permanent relocation once we get them settled." He scanned the room and realized they were missing a witness. "Why don't the rest of your join Mrs. Sheppard in the conference room, I'll be with you in a minute."

Marshall didn't need a second invitation. Before Charlie could finish pouring two cups of coffee or tell Mark and Britney where to go, he was opening the door to the conference room. "Mrs. Sheppard," he said in what he hoped was his normal voice. "I'm inspector Marshall Mann." He rounded the table so her back was to the door where the rest of the group would soon appear, and held out his hand.

Mary looked up and him and every bit of color drained from her face. She shook his hand, seeming to realize immediately that no one could know how well she knew the marshal she was pretending to meet for the first time. "Hello." Her voice was small.

Marshall held her hand longer than was polite, wanting so badly to pull her from her chair and into his arms but knowing all the reasons that could never happen. "Are you okay?" He asked in an undertone, his eyes glued to her face.

She refused to meet his gaze. "It's been a day for surprises," she said in a cold, flat voice he had never heard before.

Before he could press her further, or make some attempt at apology, Mark and Britney entered the room with Charlie right behind. Marshall let go of Mary's hand reluctantly and took a seat at the end of the table. He scanned Britney quickly, decided she looked like she was coping fine, and then returned his attention to Mary, though he was careful not to make it look like he only had eyes for her.

Before long Stan entered, a blue legal pad in one hand, a mug of coffee in the other. "Sorry to keep you waiting." He sat across from the three witnesses, halfway between Charlie and Marshall. "Inspector Connor has told you what is happening?"

"Not really." Mark said, sounding annoyed.

"Yes." Mary said, speaking at almost the same time as her husband. "He said Luca Miscari is in Albuquerque?"

Stan nodded. "About five hours ago a state trooper issued a speeding ticket to Luca Miscari just outside of town. Local police have set up road blocks throughout the city, but so far no one has seen him."

"How did he find us?" Britney's voice was high pitched and trembling.

Marshall sighed. "Mark's picture appeared in the  _Albuquerque Journal_. Miscari or one of his associates must have seen it. Right now we have the advantage because Miscari doesn't know we know he's here, but it's safest to assume he knows all about your aliases, which means you can't go back to your home."

Britney looked like she was going to protest, and neither Mark nor Mary looked particularly thrilled with the news.

"We can send someone from the police to pick up any essentials," Charlie added quickly.

"But for now, we need to put you somewhere Miscari won't find you." Stan chimed in. "Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard Inspector Connor will take you to a motel. There will be a detail posted outside all night. Britney—"

"I am not going anywhere with Mark." Mary interrupted. "He can stay with her." She tilted her head in Britney's general direction.

Stan looked over at Marshall who shrugged, managing to look nonchalant despite the part of his mind that was turning cartwheels at the fact Mary wanted time away from Mark.

"Is that amenable?" Stan asked, directing the question at Mark and Britney.

Both nodded, though Mark was slower to agree than Britney.

"Okay then." Stan said, scribbling a few things on the pad in front of him. "Mark and  _Britney_  will go with Inspector Connor. Mrs—Mary will go with Marshall. I will be in touch as soon as there is news."

Charlie left with his witnesses almost immediately. Britney was still sniffling and looked dangerously close to bursting into full blown hysterics and everyone wanted her settled into a well sound proofed hotel room before that happened. Marshall was set to follow on their heels, when Stan called him into his office.

Marshall turned to Mary with an apologetic smile. "I know it's been a long day. Just give me five minutes." He said before following his boss.

Mary watched him until the office door swung shut, hiding him from view. Her emotions were a mess. On one hand all she wanted was to step into the circle of his arms and let him sooth away the hurt and the fear of these last few hours. On the other, she was furious. Once again she was the idiotic woman won over by the tiniest bit of attention. Inspector Marshall Mann had known full well who she was the very first time they met. He'd known she was not just new to the city, but completely cut off from everyone who had ever mattered to her except her husband. He'd known her husband was a lying, cheating scumbag. No wonder he had been able to say all the right things. She'd naively thought she'd found a man who understood her, whose mind worked on the same lines as hers and with whom she could be both truly herself and truly happy. But it was all a lie.

Idiot Mary had fallen for a seedy marshal who used his inside knowledge to trick her into his bed. It was a brilliant little system he had going here. Find vulnerable women who were looking for safety and stability now that their life had been torn out from under them, pretend to be swept away by their assets, and when the time came to move on, manufacture a security breach and your ex gets relocated with a new name and a new home town by the end of the week, on the federal dime.

"Are you up for this?" Stan asked as soon as the door closed.

Marshall nodded. "I'm  _fine_. It was a graze, and my stiches come out in two days."

Stan pursed his lips in thought. "Alright. I don't have another choice or you would still be in that hospital bed. I'm putting a double security detail on the motel. Don't send them on pizza runs and don't do anything stupid."

Marshall gave Stan a mock salute. "Yessir."

"I'm serious." Stan said clearly not trusting Marshall to take it easy. "When you want to order dinner, call me. I'll bring it to you. I want that security detail at full strength. These Miscari brothers are serious business."

"I will call you with our dinner order." Marshall agreed, reaching for the door knob. "Don't worry Stan, Miscari's not even after her."

"Don't be too sure about that." Stan rifled through the files on his desk before coming up with the one he was looking for. He passed it to Marshall. "Three years ago. An associate skipped out with a shipment. This was just the warning."

Marshall flipped quickly through a half dozen crime scene photos and skimmed the report. Not only had Alberto Miscari burned down the associate's home, after it was thoroughly ransacked, but he'd killed the man's ex-wife and her dog and put their bodies in the house before dousing it in gasoline and setting it ablaze. Marshall handed the folder back to Stan. "I will cooperate with the security detail fully." He promised.

"Good."

o o o

Stan hadn't been kidding about the double security detail. One car was already at the motel, doing a quick sweep before Marshall arrived with his witness. The other followed them the whole winding way through Albuquerque, always at least three car lengths behind, watching to make sure no one else was on their tail.

Mary was eerily silent the entire way. Apart from a heartfelt, pained, "I'm sorry, I couldn't tell you," which she pretended not to hear, Marshall didn't speak either. Somehow silence seemed like the safest option. All the things he wanted to say to her were blighted by the lies his job had forced him to tell, for her safety as well as his. Yet, he wished he could go back in time and just tell her everything right from the start.

For her part, Mary was still seething. The desire to let Marshall comfort her had been completely erased by the realization of just how deeply she had allowed herself to be manipulated. Every conversation she went over in her head was poisoned now with the thought that he  _knew_ , he knew everything about her and he used that knowledge to trick her into loving him. And her anger was proportionate to the love she'd thought she found.

Mary waited until he had given her motel room a quick sweep and declared it all clear before she made her move. "Marshall?"

He turned, there was hope, a desperate sort of hope, in his eyes; she shut it out, raised her hand and slapped him as hard as she could across the face.

He took the blow as if he'd been expecting it, as if he thought he deserved it. His eyes were filled with pain and resignation and it hurt her to look at them. He opened the door, but didn't leave immediately. "I'm right next door. Don't answer the door unless it's me. If anything happens, scream and I will be here in ten seconds. You need to keep the curtain closed and stay off the phone. Do you understand?"

Mary nodded. He anger was gone and now she felt foolish, which would normally have made her angry all over again, but she was exhausted and a little scared and anger was out of reach at the moment.

"Lock both locks behind me." Marshall instructed before stepping outside, letting the door close. He waited until he heard the chain and the deadbolt slide into place before moving to his room next door. His face still stung where her hand had slapped him, but part of him relished the sting.

He deserved it. He'd known before any of this began that it was a bad idea. He'd been selfish, and foolish, not to think about what would happen when Mary learned the truth. Years of hiding people had become years of hiding himself. The only person he hadn't had to lie to for the previous five years was Stan. Even his own parents, who knew he worked for WITSEC, often got a white washed or completely fabricated account of his time. Somehow he'd lived a thousand lies and managed to delude himself into thinking they wouldn't change him. He thought this was why most marshals had partners. You needed someone who knew everything you were going through; you needed someone whose lies were the same as yours, whose burdens were equal, who would remind you that this was just a job and pull you back into the real world when the job took over too much of your soul. He hadn't had that, didn't have that, and when he slipped, there was no one to even notice.

He loved Mary. He was in love with Mary. He wouldn't voluntarily give up what they had shared these last weeks for anything the wide world had to offer, but he wished that somehow there had been someone who could have held him back, restrained him, kept him from making this beautiful, life changing mistake so he wouldn't be  _here_  right now. He had hurt her. That was one thing that he had never wanted to do, and the one thing about all of this he wished he could erase. But life didn't work like that. And now she was gone… or she might as well be.

Mark had been found. By the morning Stan would have found a new home for him, and Britney, and Mary. After tonight Marshall could never see her again. And she hated him. Well.. maybe  _that_  he could do something about.

He gave her a couple of hours to cool off before ordering a pepperoni, mushroom and olive pizza which he got Stan to pick up along with a six pack of Mary's favourite beer.

"How is she?" Stan asked when he arrived thirty minutes later.

"Upset." Marshall said honestly. "I let her have some alone time, but now we're going to talk about her options."

Stan handed over the provisions. "You want backup? I make a pretty good whipping boy."

Marshall shook his head. "No, we'll be fine."

"Alright. So far no word on Mascari. I'll keep you posted. Call if you need anything." With a wave, Stan headed back to his silver sedan.

When Stan pulled out of the parking lot, Marshall walked the six steps to Mary's door and knocked. "Can I come in? I brought pizza and I need to go over what's going to happen tomorrow."

Mary spent the last two hours watching a cooking show on cable and, despite her best efforts not to, thinking. She was not ready to forgive him, not yet, but there was a part of her that realized it was not the lie she was mad about, it was the thought that none of it was real. The idea that she could feel so much for someone without him feeling anything for her – that put her on the wrong side of the equation and it made her angry… but if he felt the same way she did… if he wasn't just manipulating her… maybe that changed things. She didn't know, but when he arrived with a pizza, a six pack of beer, and a wary/hopeful expression she admitted to herself that the emotion holding her aloof wasn't anger, it was fear. "Yeah, you can come in." She said, reaching to undo the chain.

They ate the first few bites in awkward silence before Marshall started to speak. "You need to decide tonight whether you want to go with Mark or not. Luca Mascari has been spotted here in Aluquerque and we need to move Mark tomorrow. We've already lined up a new location for him and he is being moved there first thing tomorrow. If you decide to stay with him, we will move you with him and have you set up in a new home by the end of the week."

"And if I don't?"

Marshall studiously focused on picking an olive off his pizza, but the slow, steady motion and the pause before he spoke told her everything she wanted to know. Marshall didn't want her to stay with Mark. "You're not Mascari's main target so we have a little bit of time, but the Mascari family is no joke, they won't hesitate to go after you to get to him. We would move you by the end of the week. You would be in a different city than Mark and you won't be able to know where he is. If you don't go with him, you can never see or talk to him again."

Mary stared at him incredulously for a few seconds. "I have to leave either way."

It wasn't a question, but Marshall answered anyway, his eyes meeting hers; they glistened unnaturally and she thought he might be holding back tears – but no, that was ridiculous. "Yes."

For a long time neither of them said a word. Marshall's eyes raked her face as if he would commit it to memory. For her part Mary couldn't tear her eyes away from his, those impossibly sad eyes, damp with barely supressed emotion. Those were not the eyes of a man who would use his position to trick a married woman into bed. In a split second she knew what she wanted to do. "What if I leave the program?"

"No," He said quickly, shaking his head, although his eyes were suddenly very keen on counting the olives on his side of the cardboard box. "Mary, you can't. If Mascari finds you…" Now he did look at her and there was real fear in his eyes. "I would never forgive myself," he finished in an almost whisper.

"The entire world does not revolve around you," she said in a teasing tone, lifting one hand to brush against his face, tracing the sharp line of his cheekbones with her fingertips. "Maybe I just like the warmer climate."

He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand as it cupped his face. He turned just enough to place a soft kiss against her palm.

Mary leaned in and pulled his face to hers. The sheer emotion in the kiss should have scared her - it did scare her - but she didn't pull away; this could well be their very last, and she was going to make it a good one. She slid forward until she was half in his lap, their lips never parting.

He used both hands to lift her fully into his lap, settling her knees on either side of him and bracing her there with large hands splayed over her ribs. At long last, Marshall broke off the kiss. He rested his forehead against hers and their breath mingled in the air between them as they panted, trying to catch their breath.

"How can I leave you?" Mary asked in a voice so soft she wasn't even sure he could hear her.

"I need you safe."

Mary took his face in both hands and stared straight into those beautiful blue eyes, "Life isn't safe, Marshall." She took a deep breath and said the most terrifying three words she knew: "I need  _you_."

"Mary Sheppard…" Marshall said, awe and love infused in every syllable.

"Shannon." She corrected him softly, leaning in for another kiss. "It's Mary Shannon." She whispered the last syllables against his lips before claiming them with her own. She wasn't going anywhere, and this time there would be no more lies, no more secrets.

She was coming out of hiding for good.

_**Fin.** _


End file.
